Why You Need to Rewrite Your Sales Job Description Right Now

Is your sales job description attracting the wrong type of sales professionals? You might need to rewrite it if you’ve made any of these mistakes.

Rhys Metler

You’ve written a sales job description and posted it on online job boards. No one is responding to your ad. Or, all of the wrong types of sales professionals are replying. If you’re not getting any qualified applicants, your sales job description itself might be the issue—not the position, not the compensation, and not your company. Some simple fixes to your job posting could make all of the difference.

A great sales job description is supposed to attract top talent, articulate the roles and responsibilities clearly and concisely, help align expectations of your current sales team, and expertly identify the type of sales professional that you seek. If your job description isn’t hitting these targets, then it needs to be rewritten right now. Fix these mistakes in order to have a stronger job description that gets results.

It’s Boring

Your sales job description should grab and hold job seekers’ attention. Read it from an outsider’s perspective and think about what job seekers will think when scanning it. If you’re going on and on about your organization’s success, awards, and achievements, you’ve probably bored them and stopped them from being interested in reading the rest of your posting. You might be very proud of your company’s accomplishments, but sales professionals who are seeking employment opportunities care about more important elements, so cut your company info to a bare minimum.

In addition, using generic, third-person language will in no way engage your readers. Speak directly to the candidates that you seek. Use your own voice. Humanize your sales job description.

You’re Not Telling Job Seekers What They Want to Hear

Top talent can find work easily, and they’re not going to waste their time applying to your open position if you’re not telling them what they want to hear. You must address the hot-button issues and address the key elements that sales people care about. Don’t be vague or leave out key elements. Include information on sales compensation, selling tools and the sales process, training and development, company culture, location, and roles and responsibilities.

You’ve Listed Unrealistic Expectations

You don’t want to settle for mediocre sales people. You want to hire top talent. And certainly, you don’t want to waste your time reviewing resumes from completely unqualified applicants that you would never hire. So you think, you know what you want, and you will list out every personality trait, every skill, and every piece of experience that you demand your new hire to have. Unfortunately, your list might be unrealistic.

Though we all have ideal candidates, the reality is that many of the so-called “must haves” that you are looking for aren’t really that important. Many skills can be taught. Education isn’t always that important. And some sales people with winning personalities and drive for success could be top performers, even without previous experience. So think long and hard about your requirements, and consider if they really are required or just nice to have. You don’t want great candidates to remove themselves from the running and choose not to apply just because they have four years of experience instead of five plus.

You Haven’t Added a Section on the Hiring Process

Don’t waste your time or your candidates’ time. If you are going to request a sales portfolio, if you know that the hiring process typically takes two months to complete, if you know that a telephone interview will be followed by two in-person interviews, you need to state this information in your sales job description.

You don’t want to lose top talent over frustrations with your hiring process. If you set out your expectations ahead of time, you can ensure that candidates are OK with following your process till the end because they understand what they’re getting themselves into before they apply. If you don’t, you’re going to have top candidates dropping like flies in the middle of your process.

Rhys Metler

Rhys is a tenacious, top performing Senior Sales Recruiter with 15+ years of focused experience in the Digital Media, Mobile, Software, Technology and B2B verticals. He has a successful track record of headhunting top performing sales candidates for some of the most exciting brands in North America. He is a Certified Recruitment Specialist (CRS) and has expert experience in prospecting new business, client retention/renewals and managing top performing sales and recruitment teams. Rhys enjoys spending quality time with his wife, son, and daughters, BBQing on a hot summer day and tropical vacations.

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